Plants vs Zombies is very 'of its time', so to speak. It very much is an old flash game with all of the trappings that brings; odd pivot animation, flat visuals and a fairly limited set of player actions. But PvZ works with it's limitations pretty well; a tower defence game is in hindsight an obvious pick of genre for the technology, and I can understand why this got so popular in its day. The aesthetics here aren't really for me (it's all a bit too 'wacky', 'zany' and 'lol random' for my tastes), but they give this game a character and personality that felt a bit lacking in contemporaries like the Bloons TD series. Yes, that personality has subsequently been thoroughly murdered by the endless stream of mobile sequels, but I can't hold that against this title...

Unfortunately, I found Plants vs Zombies to be rather... solvable, if that makes sense. Very early on in this game I picked a strategy that made obvious sense and... well, didn't really change the lineup much for the rest of the game. Sure they'd add a couple of water lanes, or a zombie which can literally only be interacted with using a single plant (a bit of an artificial way to increase strategic complexity in my opinion...) but, at its worst, the lack of strategizing required makes this game a bit tedious and mindless at times.

In addition to the core game, there is one hell of a lot of side content here, which is of... mixed quality. Some of the minigames (e.g. whack-a-zombie, wallnut bowling) are interesting spins on the core gameplay which I appreciated, but too much of this bonus content falls back on 'play a normal level of the game but all the enemies are on pogo sticks now' and similar low-effort seeming premises. These can make the game feel quite bloated, despite the relatively short playtime for a game like this (especially by modern mobile gaming standards).

I did enjoy playing this though... for a while at least. It does have its charm, and watching hordes of zombies melt into pea-flavoured dust never stops being viscerally satisfying. But this one definitely outstays its welcome; even by the end of the main campaign I was honestly continuing just to have finished it rather than because I was still having fun.

At the end of the day, I didn't hate this. I wouldn't even say I disliked it. It does feel like a lot of genuine passion and attention has been poured into this one compared to hundreds of other games like this. But overall I'm just not sure that I can see much reason to play this in the modern day, apart from for nostalgia which I did not have.

Nano Assault EX is a good game, just not one I'm fully capable of enjoying. Its a rather standard twin-stick shooter/Bullet hell hybrid that at has decent levels, gameplay and graphics, but there are a few fatal flaws that hold it back:

-You can't skip cut-scenes, even when returning to a level after dying. You will die a lot.

-Projectiles are way too small to see, especially on the 3DS screen.

-The 3DS nub is an AWFUL way to aim.

-Enemies are capable of spawning directly on top of you and killing you instantly.

-Though the graphics are unique, they are very repetitive and make the game feel quite bland over time.

If these few flaws were eliminated this would easily become a 4/5 game. As it is however it can still be an alright time and is best in short play sessions.

I don’t know how in the world Atlus came up with an idea for a game that was half visual novel half puzzle with a splash of social sim/questions that would shape the many endings the game offers and revolve all of that around mature themes like love, death, and sex. But they did and it is brilliant.

I don’t know what I was expecting coming into this game but it was way more wild than I ever could have imagined. The story is goofy yet also very interesting and awesome. I loved how many of the choices they give you in the social sim are not so black and white and answering them can change Vincent’s romantic life as well as spell life or death of minor characters. I also loved many of the characters in this game especially the three “Catherin”s and Vincent’s main core of friends.

The puzzles were at first very frustrating, maybe because I am dumb, but once I got the hang of them I really enjoyed them. I think it’s awesome that they give you an option to skip the puzzles in case you want to just see the story unfold as well. I didn’t use that feature but it’s nice they added it in especially if you want to replay several times to see the multiple endings.

I never played the original but I know that Rin wasn’t in the original. I didn’t choose her path so maybe I would feel differently if I would have but I feel the game was clearly about Catherine and Katherine and you could feel Rin was an add on. For instance, again I’m sure if I chose her path it would be different, but in my playthrough it was building up to something big with her but then she legit just left and never came back. It felt off to me and knowing she was an add on to this version it made sense to me but if I didn’t know that I would have been wondering wtf that was all about.

The story has some amazing twist and turns and kept my interest for the 12 hour playtime. I only finished one path but I am going to go back and see how many different endings I can unlock but using the puzzle skip I spoke on earlier. But I am very excited to jump back in and see the various outcomes. If I enjoy them enough I may come back and give this game an extra half star or so but I feel like I know enough to rate and review it.

Catherine is a very unique game and it’s one I feel like you owe it to yourself to at least give it a shot even if visual novels aren’t your thing.

My 2024 ranked

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

It made my top 100 (preliminary ranking. Will finalize after getting all endings)

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/

this review will be better in the future but for now...

how come this game had this one random ass human that was as unimportant as a grain of sand to be the one that has influenced an ending that was dark?

parents dying in a car crash, with this mike dude spiraling to a coma, with her sister wondering if she'll make it alive? i mean he opens his eyes and happy thoughts with joey and mari dolls ending it all which is good. but why..?

thankfully they changed it later to the same dude falling off of a tree, accidentally killing himself in the eyes of the girl. shit was HORRIFIED. at least the parents are alive!!!!

Kid Dracula is a spin-off of the Castlevania series, starring a chibi version of the Prince of Darkness himself.
It's clear why, initially, this didn't get a worldwide release. Not only because it has a very chibi art-style, something that the USA of old probably wouldn't accept, but it also contains some stuff related to Japanese culture.

In terms of gameplay, this one feels more like a Mega Man game than a Castlevania one, as Kid Dracula's main attack is a projectible very similar to that of the Blue Bomber's. After you beat a stage, you get a new ability to choose from, whether that'd be a homing projectible or an ice attack.

I did feel like the level design only really asked for some of these abilities to be used in some ocassions. There are some interesting set-pieces in the levels themselves, though, and I really liked the variety of environments Kid Dracula goes through.

It wasn't all perfect though, since I did some frustrating times with some of the bosses and some parts of the levels. Stage 6's boss can go suck it, because he constantly summons bubbles at you, but you have little room to avoid them, so you'll most likely get knocked back from them and die.

What doesn't help is that you're sent all the way back towards the middle of the level, and that really grinded my gears. I did use plenty of save-states for this one, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Gotta be honest, even with the game's cute aesthetic, I didn't really find this game to be all that interesting. If it wasn't frustrating, then it was just leaving me indifferent.
Again, there were things about this game that I liked, like the overall presentation and some parts of the soundtrack, but it really doesn't feel like anything special.

Overall, Kid Dracula is a fine 2D platformer that sometimes left me frustrated, but other times left me with the feeling that I just wanted this to be done, so I could finish all of the games of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection.

It took me many years, but I finished all of the games present in this collection.
I got the Castlevania Anniversary Collection back in 2019, and it was something great for the Castlevania series, I'd say. This franchise rarely got collections, and only a few re-releases here and there thanks to Nintendo's Virtual Console service.

Now, with this collections, we would be able to experience many Classic Castlevania games, all at a good price. It is a bit odd seeing games like Rondo of Blood and Castlevania Legends being excluded, but what we got is pretty good.
We got the original NES trilogy, the SNES and Mega Drive games, the first two Game Boy games and even the NES version of Kid Dracula as a bonus.
And in a update, they included most of the Japanese versions of these games, which is great, because it actually allowed me to beat Castlevania III.

The extra Bonus Book they added is also a nice addition, filled with high-qulaity prints of box art, and some interviews too.

Overall, the Castlevania Anniversary Collection is a great collection for those who want to get into the Castlevania series, and want to see where the series started.

Zero 4 is an awkward title; on one hand it has an interesting and novel approach to its roster of bosses and stages with alternate weather hazards conditions. On the other hand, it feels like it mostly serves mostly as an encore for Dr Weil, repeating several beats of the previous game with a minor change in pretense. I find it to be a slightly more compelling version of things however, taking the Zero series out on a high note.

Its a shame that somehow the best qualities of 4 and 3 couldnt exist in the same game tho, because it leaves Zero 4 with a certain air of redundancy. Its stage and boss roster puts 3’s to shame and it feels like 4 captures a sympathetic side of Zero better than the conflict with Omega does - which is strange considering what Omega represented. Theres just a weird liminal-ness to the game, hard to put a finger on.

Kinda astonishing I hadn't played this one until now, but here we are...

Half-Life, to my mind, exists in a bit of an odd spot in the history of the genre. In a way it feels like the missing link between Doom-clone boomer shooters and the more expansive immersion and worldbuilding-focussed games that came afterwards. I enjoyed finally playing this one a fair bit; the organic storytelling and especially the decision to have almost no exposition dumping in this game honestly holds up pretty well to this day. Black Mesa feels like a real, living place (albeit comically oversized and tropey); it definitely could have done with a few additional NPC models / voice lines, but the environmental storytelling is honestly decent even by today's standards.

Where Half-Life doesn't hold up so well is with its gameplay. The core game is its gunplay. The enemy variety is great and there is a nice selection of weapons on offer, most of which feel satisfying to use, but I feel there may be too many weapons here; the UI is not streamlined enough to make it easy to remember where each of your guns is in the toolbar, and switching between them during combat (which is often necessary) is awkward and imprecise as a result. Also, I played this on PC, and the auto-aim is the most egregious I have ever seen. I understand the need for a bit of auto-aim in games like this to improve the player experience, but there is absolutely no subtlety to it here at all. In fact I often found myself having to actively fight against the auto-aim; for example if an enemy was stood next to an explosive barrel, the game would simply refuse to let me shoot the barrel if the enemy was too close because it would latch onto the enemy instead. The auto-aim also seemed to have a bit of a hard time tracking flying enemies, and I'm pretty sure I would have been more accurate at hitting them without it.

There are also some minor platforming elements to the game, and... yeah they suck. It seems obvious to me that this engine is just not appropriate for platforming challenges, and yet Half Life insists on having them anyway. Freeman moves way too fast for some of the precision needed in this game (even when crouching), and a fair few jumps rely on janky features like 'crouch-jumping' which are never explained to the player, make no intuitive sense and feel more like a bug that was reinterpreted as a feature somewhere in development. The platforming comes to a head in the final couple of areas. Don't get me wrong, Xen absolutely looks the part, but all the platforming in this area make me never want to play it again. Thank god for the ability to make save states at will.

The overall feeling I get is a game that doesn't respect its own limitations. Half Life tries to do a lot of things that the state of technology at the time just wasn't quite able to pull off. I guess the attempt to try new things is something to be commended, but I equally have respect for something like Doom which is incredibly aware of its technological limitations and consequently still stands up as a game perfectly well to this day.

Despite all this, I did still enjoy Half Life a fair bit in the end. A lot of this enjoyment comes from ability to experience a piece of gaming history (see also Doom and Super Mario 64), and honestly the game's numerous shortcomings and dated features weren't enough to put too much of a dent in this. This is probably another one of those games that I'll never replay, but I'm glad to have played through it once and would encourage any gamers who haven't to give it a go.

(Part 8 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can read their eighth review here)

We may know them now as the old, fragile corpse of a company that just refuses to die out while clinging to the past rigorously with all their might, but back in the earliest days of gaming, Atari was THE video game company that beat all the rest. They were the ones responsible for some of the most influential and classic video games ever released, such as Pong, Breakout, and so on, and with their lineup of console from the fondly remembered Atari 2600 to even the laughing stock known as the Atari Jaguar, they have had quite the history with all of the games that they try to put out on the market. Sure, they may have made some pretty big mistakes in the past, such as inadvertently helping cause the Video Game Crash of 1983, as well as the aforementioned Atari Jaguar, but without them and their influence on the industry, I can’t even imagine where video games would be nowadays. So, I figured it was about time that we PROPERLY reviewed an Atari game on here, rather than just give one a couple of sentences and a joke thrown in, and the game we are gonna do that with is Video Olympics.

Much like with most Atari 2600 games in general, or any other game for Atari consoles, I had never really heard anything about this game prior to this review. When it comes to my general knowledge of video games and video game history, it goes all the way back to the NES era, and SOME points in the arcade era before that, but aside from that, that’s it. Don’t really know too much about any of the games from Atari systems, or whatever other systems were released back then, so I am curious to see what kind of “hidden gems” I have been missing out on for so long from these systems. However, when I went to research for this game, I then quickly discovered that…….. It… it’s just Pong… it’s just Po- IT’S JUST PONG! Goddammit, we already did an entire review on Pong rip-offs, we can’t do another one on it! But I couldn’t find anything else worth reviewing in the selection from 1977 though! loud groan........... you know what, fuck it. I love running gags, and Pong is one of the best gags that I have ever seen, so we’re doing it again! HERE WE GO!

So, one neat thing that I actually really like about old Atari games about this is that, when it comes to a good selection of the games you could get for the 2600, you weren’t limited to just one game. A lot of the games for these systems actually contained multiple games on them that you could select from, with them either being variations on previous games, or new games entirely, which does provide a good amount of variety and replayability for games that look like… well, that. Video Olympics is no different when it comes to this, as we have a total of 50 games on here, each one mimicking a real life sport while being a variation of Pong itself, which is pretty neat, so, as you probably expected, we are going to go through all 50 of these games and see just what is so special about each and every one of them. And I’m doing it just for you.

To start things off, of course we have the classic game of Pong to work with, where you compete against another person, you bounce a ball back and forth between each other, you score a point on the other person, and you laugh in their face as they are now a disgrace to their family name. We all know how it works, and it still works just as well here, and there are even some new variations introduced here to change up the gameplay slightly. You can now set your paddles to several different settings to change up the game, such as the Speed option, which will make it so that the ball flies towards the other side faster whenever you hit it with your paddle, or the Whammy option, which will launch the ball from your paddles at sharper angles, making so that you can score against your opponent easier. While these don’t change too much about the game, they do add an extra layer of precision and quick thinking for the experience, which I am a fan of, and Games #1 and 2 consist of Pong with these different settings, so that way you can find out which variation works best for you.

If you just so happen to be a friendless loser though who can’t get anyone to play Pong with you, then fear not, for Games #3 and 4 of this pack consist of Robot Pong, a version of Pong that is pretty much the exact same as the original version, once again with the different Speed and Whammy settings, except now instead of facing another real-life opponent, you will face a computer opponent instead. Kinda seems like a waste to separate the single-player and multiplayer options into four separate games, but it is Atari, so it makes perfect sense as to why they did that, and it does at least give more options for those who, again, don’t have anyone to play the game with, so that is cool.

After that though is when things get real spicy, as for Games #5 and 6, we have the Pong 4-player game, where you will be taking on a Doubles game of Pong, with two players on a team, and each player controlling a single paddle each. This doesn’t change too much about the game, but it is at least cool to have the option to play with multiple people, and they change up the position of the paddles themselves for Games #7 and 8, so that is pretty cool if you don’t want your paddles to be constantly overlapping each other. Not only that, but it does also add another layer of strategy that can change up a match pretty quickly…… or at least, as quickly as a Pong match can be changed up anyway.

If controlling just one paddle isn’t enough for you though, then not to worry, because for Games #9 and 10, we have Super Pong, where you can control two different paddles at once! I know, I know, your heart is just beating out of your chest thinking about that, and just how CHAOTIC matches can get because of it, cause I’m thinking that myself as well. If you thought that sounded scary though, then just wait until you get to Games #11 and 12, where it is Super Pong again, but now it’s back in 4-player mode, which means there are a total of 16 PADDLES on screen at once…….. SIXTEEN! Whatever madman at Atari thought of putting this many paddles into a game at once must be some kind of lunatic, but I appreciate them for going the extra mile regardless.

But anyway, we should now go ahead and get away from the BORING, regular versions of Pong here, and get into the more exciting stuff now! Games #13 and 14 brings us into the wild and wonderful world of Soccer, which in this game is almost just like Pong, except now the field you play in is green, because how can it not be, and you control two different paddles, one in front of your goal, and the other one further out to combat the other player. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea though, then there is a way around that set-up, because with Games #15 and 16, we get back the 4-player options from before, with one player controlling each paddle, and there being two different players on each team. This one feels a lot more natural to mess around with, rather then trying to figure out what you are doing with two different paddles at once, but for those of you who are wanting that extra bit of chaos for 4-player mode, then Atari has got you covered with Games #17 and 18, where they put the extra paddles back in, to the fear of Pong players everywhere.

But that’s not all that the Soccer variants offer, oh no sir, because these are also the first games in this set-up that introduce the Catch variant into the mix. This makes it so that you are able to catch the ball with one of your paddles, allowing you to aim it and shoot it wherever you would like to change the game up, allowing you to strategize even more with how you shoot the ball around and what kind of plays you could throw out towards your opponent. Not gonna lie, I think this may just be my favorite variation on the game that we have here, because it feels a lot less uncontrollable compared to every other mode, and again, it allows you to be a lot more precise with your shots and plays, which I heavily prefer over just blindly hitting the ball with my paddle wherever it goes, just to see what plays out in the future.

Now that we got Soccer out of the way though, I think it’s about time that we move from a sport that I barely know how to play to a sport that I have NO CLUE how to play at all, as with Games #19 and 20, we now have Foozpong!........... you know, Foozpong? It’s like Foozball, except with Pong paddles………. no? Well, anyways, this one makes it so that you will be controlling two separate rows of Pong paddles, seemingly never ending, being able to hit the ball back to your opponent at many given opportunities with how many different paddles will be on all ends of the screen. “But wait, Mega”, I hear you cry, “I want my Pong game to be a cluttered, incomprehensible mess that anyone can barely play!” Well, little Jimmy, do I have the surprise for you, because Games #21 and 22 give you just that by bringing back the 4-player mode, so that everyone can be overstimulated and confused at the same time.

Now let’s move onto the games that take a much more simple approach to the Pong formula, as for all of my peeps up in the Maple Leaf country, Games #23 and 24 give us Hockey, which is pretty similar to that of regular Pong, except rather than trying to get the ball to reach the other side of the screen where your opponent is, we now actually have goals that you have to hit the ball into instead. That is pretty neat, adding yet another thin line of strategy to the ever-evolving game that is Pong, and with Games #25, 26, 27 and 28, you can upgrade it to not only give yourself 2 paddles to work with, but THREE paddles as well!.......... not exactly sure why you would need those, considering how small the goals are this time around, but hey, it’s still there anyway. And before you ask, no, they didn’t forget about any of the friend groups that go beyond two people, because Games #29 and 30 give you the 4-player option that crave with every fiber of your being, and they even manage to give you the Foozpong set-up with Games #31 and 32 as well, just in case you really didn’t want to play the game today.

All of that stuff we just talked about though, including all of the other games included beforehand….. BABY SHIT. That’s what they all are, as we haven’t gotten to the KING of kings, the master of all Pong games yet, as with Games #33 and 34, we get the man, the myth, the LEGEND, Quadrapong! If you somehow don’t know the majesty that is Quadrapong, then let me tell you all about it: it is actual, no strings attached, 4-player Pong, where each of you takes one side of the screen, and you have to hit the ball into your opponent’s goal. It isn’t too much more complex than any of the other games of Pong that we have covered so far, but I’m just happy to get a proper free-for-all Pong mode here, rather than whatever co-operative bullshit they pull with all of the other games.

But, if you want any something more inventive then that, then we got you covered, as with Games #35 and 36, we get our next game, Handball, where instead of trying to score goals against your opponent, you are now trying to get more points then them by hitting the ball yourself, with both of you on one side of the screen. I like this approach as well, changing up the objective of the game rather than how the player reaches the objective of each game, which is pretty cool……. but then they ruin it with Games #37 and 38, where they place two other players slightly in front of you, so thanks for that, guys. You all were doing so great too, I had so much faith in you, and you threw it all away…

Not to worry though, because they can help gain back their good faith with the introduction of Games #39 and 40, Volleyball! This one works pretty differently from all of the other games, where the ball will actually bounce around vertically, and you have to bounce it over to the other opponent’s side, which is a nice change of pace rather than sticking to the traditional Pong formula for every single game, but just changed up very slightly. And of course, they give you the 4-player variant with Games #41 and 42, with those other two players getting smaller paddles that are slightly over the two main paddles, which is a nice little addition, even if they can’t help a ton when compared to the main paddles.

If you have been getting tired of all this Ponging, then you will be happy to know that we are on the home stretch, where we now have the last Pong game here, with Games #43, 44, 45, and 46 giving us Basketball! Much like with Volleyball, you have to bounce the ball around rather then hitting it towards an opponent, but naturally, you have to get the ball into the hoops this time around….. and by hoops, I mean the rectangles that they pretend are hoops in this game. And to end things off, Games #47, 48, 49 and 50 give us the 4-player variants, where you get two more smaller paddles above the main ones, which can also help out in scoring all of the baskets, so that everybody in the family of all ages can come together and have a blast with the ONLY proper way to ever play basketball ever.

And with that, we are DONE! We have gone through every single game variation that can be found in Video Olympics, and I am NEVER doing this again! Seriously, there is only so much that one man can say about Pong before he ends up wanting to pong himself to death, and I think I am just right about there. But what I will say is, out of all of the Pong variations that I have played and researched to talk about on this website, this might just be the best one of the bunch. Yeah, it doesn’t have too many differences compared to all of those other versions of the game that exist out there, but the fact that this single package offers so many different versions of the game to play, coupled with the fact that it introduces more variations on the game, is quite admirable, and it makes it really fun to go through. Obviously, you probably won’t get much out of it, considering that it is just more Pong, but for a brief amount of time, you could definitely have some fun with it with friends, before you all inevitably move on to playing actual video games after this. But with all that out of the way, we are done here. I don’t even have an ending joke, I am going to go fly onto my bed now. Happy Ponging Season to you all, and I will see you all in 3,000 years.

Game #619

I am an unapologetic Gilmore Girls enthusiast, thanks to my mother and sister binging it over and over and over when I was a lad. Curious ol' me was wondering if they ever made a video game. I typed Gilmore Girls into Backloggd's search bar and this was the only thing that came up. I'm a Fire Emblem fan, so I had to try this.

This was cute and had some great nods to the show, even if some of the writing was uncharacteristic at times. But also, this was made as a gift from a girl to her boyfriend for watching the show with her so I can't judge too much; there was some clear inside jokes between the two of them caked into this and that's very sweet. Bonus points for Kirk being OP, that was awesome.

I had no idea the Fire Emblem ROM hacking community was so strong. This may have opened a can of worms...

This is a surprisingly good port of Street Fighter IV to the 3DS, however there is also surprisingly little to talk about here. It is essentially just Street Fighter IV but on the 3DS. The main issue people tend to have with this game is the fact that your only controller happens to be a Nintendo 3DS, but after playing the mobile version of this game I'm grateful to even have a joystick at all, and it honestly doesn't feel that bad. My inputs were pretty consistent and even most combos were pretty easy to pull off. The only thing that I found slightly annoying was inputting super/ultra moves, but the ability to do special moves by tapping the touch screen completely fixes that, even if it is a little busted on characters like Gief. There is also new headache inducing 3D mode that I would never recommend playing, but otherwise this is a pretty solid port.

DiB has been quite an enjoyable 5 hour experience with one main surprising flaw. It’s not really a proper puzzle game. It’s mostly a hidden object kind of game in 3D environments. You need to find orbs hidden to advance to the next island (total islands are 6) and there are enough collectibles to find. There are some puzzles here and there but they’re mostly around to keep you active. The game is mostly about exploring, noticing things around you and how items can be hidden. Think of having to interact with a rock to find something underneath, destroy a boat to activate something etc.

The game is very relaxing and cozy while having enough good gameplay. It looks and sounds adorable with the 6 environments being distinctive and they have enough different puzzles/interactions. The controls work really well with a mouse. You can see that this might have been a mobile game originally in terms of using the touch screen to touch the buttons etc. But the port is excellent and the mouse is a very good replacement for touchscreen. You don’t need a keyboard at all. The achievements pass the test. They’re about progress, collecting things, doing fun random things and some good challenges such as not using the star map at all.

Even though the achievements are fun, they really don’t work well with the way saves are handled. The game saves constantly. You can quit after every move and it will continue right where you were. This is on one hand great but this makes a couple of achievements completely missable. You don’t have different save files and you can’t save manually. The only thing you can do is select ‘reset progress’ in the options menu, start a new game, select unlock islands and pick the islands with the achievements you’ve missed. There is one other solution to back-up your save but it involves so much annoyance. The save is managed through registry editor. You have to export what you have and import it after resetting your progress in-game. I really don’t understand why a game such as this doesn’t offer you a better way of getting the achievements you miss without having to mess around with your saves. The settings menu is also limited compared to other PC games. You can change the resolution, language and some sound options mostly.

I’m really happy with the game aside from the save issue in relation to the achievements. It was on sale for 90% off and it’s definitely worth it for the €1,67 I paid. It’s the perfect game to play between bigger games.

This is my first time beating Zelda 1, thanks to NOWITSREYNTIME17 for starting up the Zelda marathon. The other people participating in it are QuentTheSlayer, Phantasm, Steinco, LunaCan2, and Ptcremisi. If anyone joins after my review is posted, tell me and I’ll add them into the list of participating members. Without further ado, let’s get into the review!

I'll start the review with things I like about Zelda 1. I like the enemy design and how I can recognize some of the enemies in this game from their version in BotW (Octorok, Lynel, and Kesee). It just goes to show how good the designs have been from the beginning. I also like the overworld design, the map is woven well together, every place feels like it belongs there. with the graveyard and Death Mountain being my favorite places to visit because of their atmosphere (the graveyard is gray, and Death Mountain has boulders falling from it). I also like all the different items in Zelda 1. You have the rod, boomerang, and bow for long range attacks, the sword and bomb for short range attacks, and the candle for attacking yourself (I always run into the fire after using the candle, so annoying)!

The best part of Zelda 1 for me is how it made me feel. I started Zelda 1 guideless and I’m genuinely happy that I did. I explored the first dungeon, beat the first dungeon, exploited the gambling old man, found and got stuck in the fifth dungeon (I didn’t have the ladder to climb over the lava). I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go (mostly because I kept going back to the top right side of the map) so I used a guide. I said I was happy I didn’t use the guide, but I was even happier when I was using the guide. I was having fun, exploring and getting good upgrades like the blue ring and white sword, and speeding through dungeons 2 and 3. Now I’m going to talk about my least favorite part of Zelda 1, the dungeons (past 3).

I reached dungeon 4 and started to feel like it was getting annoying to do the same thing over and over again, which was fight a hard enemy , get a key, proceed to the next room, push block down to get a secret staircase to appear, rinse and repeat. This loop was especially worse in later dungeons since the brilliant minds at Nintendo realized they could reuse bosses and make them regular enemies in later dungeons. The abundance of enemies got annoying too, all I did was hang back and attack from afar since there is no reason to get up close and risk getting hurt. There honestly isn’t much reason to fight enemies in rooms that don’t have a key or hidden passageway. When that happens, I’ll just skip the room because there is no point in defeating the enemies (10 rupees or a few bombs aren’t good incentives). Also why were the only puzzles in dungeons pushing blocks and bobbing walls (and using the candle if we really want to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt).

I’m thinking about why I’m rating this game so highly, and it’s really unobjective. Zelda 1 has a good core for a puzzle adventure game, but it falls flat with its lack of interesting and fun puzzles. I do enjoy some parts of this game, like the overworld and enemy design, but most of it just gets boring half way through. I wasn’t expecting to like Zelda 1, but I did (even if I didn’t enjoy it that much later on). I’m not expecting to like Zelda 2, but who knows Nintendo has already surprised me once. Now onto Zelda 2!